Evaluation of quality criteria and yield of saffron on simulated On-farm conditions

In this study, the effects of agronomic management such as crop residue corm density and planting depth on flower and daughter corm criteria and quality of saffron under on-farm conditions at the Organic Field, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad during two growing seasons of 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 were evaluated as strip plot based on randomized complete block design with three replications. Treatments were crop residue (0 and 6 tons of wheat straw per ha), corm density (10, 20 and 30 t.ha-1) and planting depth (8 and 15 cm). Studied criteria were flower numbers per area, fresh flower yield, dried stigma yield, total weight of daughter corms, total number of daughter corms, daughter corm diameter, mean weight of daughter corm and quality (picrocrocin, safranal and crocin). Results showed that the simple effects of crop residue, corm density and planting depth were significant on flower yield, growth and daughter corm yield of saffron in the second year (p≤0.05). The simple and interaction effects of these factors were not significant on quality. Crop residue application were enhanced the flower number, dried weight of stigma, dried weight of daughter corms and number of daughter corms per m2 up to 15, 18, 15 and 3 percent compared with control, respectively. The highest flower number, dried weight of stigma, dried weight of daughter corms and number of daughter corms were observed with 20 ton corms per ha with 326.41 flowers.m-2, 410.18 mg.m-2, 1042.66 g.m-2 and 140.17 daughter corms.m-2, respectively. Increasing planting depth from 8 to 15 cm improved flower number, dried weight of stigma, dried weight of daughter corms and number of daughter corms per m2 up to 11, 15, 45 and 2 percent compared with control, respectively.